So how does individual personal
motivation relate to
career paths and professional
development? Well to start with let's
ask you know what is
motivation? Well it motivation is our
urge or want or desire to
do something or to pursue something
right.
Leadership for example as an area of of
business or professional development is
focused on
how you motivate individuals in a given
direction or towards a specific
objective or
or course of action right.
So generally in terms of our personal
motivation though
we have an urge or desire to pursue
a course of action based upon certain
aspects or characteristics of ourselves.
Now if we are ultimately motivated
towards something
we're more engaged in that activity so
in our job or career
function if we're more engaged in
something research has shown that
engagement itself is tied to increased
performance
increased dedication to the task or
objective at hand
it facilitates individual personal
learning
and development right in terms of
knowledge and skills
and ultimately engaged activity tends to
be
more satisfying activity that
individuals who take part
in things that engage them regularly are
generally more content or satisfied with
what they're doing.
Okay so ultimately in order to achieve a
engagement we need a level of motivation
there,
so what motivates us?
Well there's an extensive amount of
psychology and organizational behavior
research that focuses on
exactly what motivates individuals
within the organization,
but that all starts with the individual
right what
motivates the individual well that's
different for all of us we have
different
influences throughout our lives that
influence us in different ways that
cause
us to be motivated by one thing or
another.
Okay for example an internal need for an
individual
might be recognition from their boss, it
might
be a completed task right that whatever
they're doing needs to
end at some point in time, it might need
to be that they have a creative
output, another need might be that
um it have an impact or have some
broader
purpose. So there there are tons of
internal needs that you will find in
identified
and I list a number of them in the
article on thebusinessprofessor.com
that you can look at
that are commonly recognized internal
needs
that can be met in the job
function or task okay. And then within
any job or specific task or function you
have things that you have to do
right, um do these functions or processes
or
the objective of the task or function or
job
does that meet your internal needs. So I
hear students talk about
all the time wanting to go into a
particular
industry for their career path. What i'd
like to hear
however is them talking about
finding a job or career function that
where
what they do ultimately aligns with
and meets their internal needs right.
If they're a high
recognition or type of person
they need to be looking for the type of
job where they can achieve recognition,
if they need a creative output or
they're more satisfied when they have a
finished task
or something that they can be proud of
that they've made that they've worked on
then they need to find a job that again
allows them that,
if they need something in the form of
individual effort that they they can
work on things individually and don't
have to depend on others
well you wouldn't want to focus on a job
that requires to you to always work in
teams and to
not have the level of autonomy that you
want in whatever task or function you're
undertaking.
So oftentimes regardless of the industry
or field that you're going to go into
the specific job you're going to do or
undertake may align well or not align
well with your internal needs.
An individual's internal needs do evolve
or change over time, research has shown
us
that, but at any given point or
time period in your career understanding
what your internal needs are and going
out and searching for positions that
will allow you to be fulfilled
will ultimately result in those things
that we talked about a higher level of
performance,
greater growth as an individual
professionally, and it will help you
move forward in your career based upon
factors like
performance, dedication, etc. So ultimately
understanding your personal motivation
and how jobs
and career fields are structured in
their ability
to meet those internal needs will do a
lot
for you in terms of career and personal
slash professional development.